1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to the field of computer terminals and peripherals. More particularly, the present invention relates to document scanning computer peripherals and to computer terminals including such document scanners.
2. Description of the Related Art
The long heralded advent of the paperless office has so far failed to materialize. In fact, the advent of small and powerful computers has actually led to an increase in the amount of paper generated. A small footprint, heavy-duty and high performance document scanner is, therefore, an extremely desirable peripheral that would aid organizations to streamline document capture, processing and archiving operations. Traditionally, in large organizations, documents are scanned using large high-volume document scanners, which because of their high complexity and high price, are located in a specialized centralized department staffed with operators that have neither knowledge of nor responsibility for the content of the documents scanned. The alternative to such large scanners are desktop scanners. However, currently available desktop scanners have thus far largely been relegated to home uses due in part to their slow performance. What are needed, therefore, are small footprint, heavy-duty and high performance document scanning terminals suitable for desktop use in business enterprise environments.
For important documents that are scanned, the original paper copy of the document often must be accessible for reference, thus requiring large centralized storage space with sophisticated environmental control equipment. However, in order to improve efficiency, there is growing pressure to eliminate the need to access the archived original paper copy. The person performing the document capture, therefore, should be responsible for ensuring that the document is properly scanned, that any information, parameters or codes associated with the document are captured and that an electronic receipt and/or a paper receipt is produced as proof that the scanning operation has been successfully completed. What are also needed, therefore, are document scanners that generate an electronic and/or paper receipt for the documents that are scanned.
Many document scanner currently on the market have a unitary construction, featuring a single, non-modifiable configuration. However, such a configuration might not be appropriate for all uses or for all users. What is also needed, therefore, are scanning terminals that are modular in construction, affording users the ability to configure the scanning terminal according to their needs and budgets.